of Louis XIV., they would not have endured him; and we may say the same of the King of Prussia's people." Sir Adam introduced the ancient Greeks and Romans. JOHNSON. "Sir, the mass of both of them were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing, and consequently knowledge is not generally diffused. Knowledge is diffused among our people by the newspapers." Sir Adam mentioned the orators, poets, and artists of Greece. JOHNSON. "Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people. We see even what the boasted Athenians were. The little effect which Demosthenes's orations had upon them, shows that they were barbarians." That clergyman may be considered as sinners in general, as all men are, cannot be denied; but this reflection will not counteract their good precepts so much, as the absolute knowledge of their having been guilty of certain specific immoral acts. I told him, that by the rules of the church of Scotland, in their "Book of Discipline," if a scandal, as it is called, is not prosecuted for five years, it cannot afterwards be proceeded upon, "unless it be of a heinous nature, or again become flagrant;" and that hence a question arose, whether fornication was a sin of a heinous nature; and that I had maintained, that it did not deserve that epithet, inasmuch as it was not one of those sins which argue very great depravity of Sir Adam was unlucky in his topicks; heart: in short, was not, in the general for he suggested a doubt of the propriety of acceptation of mankind, heinous sin. bishops having seats in the house of lords. JOHNSON. "No, sir, it is not a heinous sin. JOHNSON. "How so, sir? Who is more A heinous sin is that for which a man is proper for having the dignity of a peer than punished with death or banishment." Bosa bishop, provided a bishop be what he WELL. "But, sir, after I had argued that ought to be; and if improper bishops be it was not a heinous sin, an old clergyman made, that is not the fault of the bishops, rose up, and repeating the text of scripture but of those who make them." denouncing judgment against whoremonOn Sunday, April 5, after attending di-gers, asked, whether, considering this, vine service at St. Paul's church, I found there could be any doubt of fornication behim alone. Of a schoolmaster of his ac-ing a heinous sin." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, quaintance, a native of Scotland, he said, observe the word whoremonger. Every "He has agreat deal of good about him; sin, if persisted in, will become heinous. but he is also very defective in some re- Whoremonger is a dealer in whores, as spects. His inner part is good, but his ironmonger is a dealer in iron. But as you outer part is mighty awkward. You in don't call a man an ironmonger for buyScotland do not attain that nice critical skilling and selling a penknife; so you don't in languages, which we get in our schools call a man a whoremonger for getting one in England. I would not put a boy to wench with child 2 ?” him, whom I intended for a man of learning. But for the sons of citizens, who are to learn a little, get good morals, and then go to trade, he may do very well.” I mentioned a cause in which I had appeared as counsel at the bar of the general assembly of the church of Scotland, where a probationer (as one licensed to preach, but not yet ordained, is called) was opposed in his application to be inducted, because it was alleged that he had been guilty of fornication five years before. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, if he has repented, it is not a sufficient objection. A man who is good enough to go to heaven, is good enough to be a clergyman." This was a humane and liberal sentiment. But the character of a clergyman is more sacred than that of an ordinary christian. As he is to instruct with authority, he should be regarded with reverence, as one upon whom divine truth has had the effect to set him above such transgressions, as men, less exalted by spiritual habits and yet upon the whole not to be excluded from heaven, have been betrayed into by the predominance of passion. [Mr. Elphinston: see ante, p. 85.-ED.] I spoke of the inequality of the livings of the clergy in England, and the scanty provisions of some of the curates. JOHNSON. "Why yes, sir; but it cannot be helped. You must consider, that the revenues of the clergy are not at the disposal of the state, like the pay of the army. Different men have founded different churches; and some are better endowed, some The state cannot interfere, and make an equal division of what has been particularly appropriated. Now when a clergyman has but small living, or even two small livings, he can afford very little to the curate. worse. He said he went more frequently to church when there were prayers only, than when there was also a sermon, as the people required more an example for the one than the other; it being much easier for them to hear a sermon, than to fix their minds on prayer. 2 It must not be presumed that Dr. Johnson meant to give any countenance to licentiousness, though in the character of an advocate he made a just and subtle distinction between occa sional and habitual transgression.-BOSWELL. On Monday, April 6, I dined with him | at Sir Alexander Macdonald's, where was a young officer in the regimentals of the Scots Royal, who talked with a vivacity, fluency, and precision so uncommon, that he attracted particular attention. He proved to be the Hon. Thomas Erskine, youngest brother to the Earl of Buchan, who has since risen into such brilliant reputation at the bar in Westminster-hall 1. Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, "He was a blockhead ;" and upon my expressing my astonishment at so strange an assertion, he said, "What I mean by his being a blockhead is, that he was a barren rascal." BOSWELL. "Will you not allow, sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human life?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, it is of very low life. Richardson used to say, that had he not known who Fielding was, he should have believed he was an ostler. Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones 2. I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews."" ERSKINE. "Surely, sir, Richardson is very tedious." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." I have already given my opinion of Fielding; but I cannot refrain from repeating here my wonder at Johnson's excessive and unaccountable depreciation of one of the best writers that England has produced. "Tom Jones" has stood the 1 [Born in 1748; entered the navy as a midshipman in 1764, and the army as an ensign in the royals in 1768. He was called to the bar in 1779; appointed a king's council in 1783, and, in 1806, lord chancellor of England, and created a baron by the title of Lord Erskine. He died in 1823. Neither his conversation, (though, even to the last, remarkable for fluency and vivacity,) nor his parliamentary speeches, ever bore any proportion to the extraordinary force and brilliancy of his forensic eloquence. Those who only knew him in private, or in the house of commons, had some difficulty in believing the effect he produced at the bar. During the last years of his life, his conduct was eccentric to a degree that justified a suspicion, and even a hope, that his understanding was impaired.-ED.] 2 Johnson's severity against Fielding did not arise from any viciousness in his style, but from his loose life, and the profligacy of almost all his male characters. Who would venture to read one of his novels aloud to modest women? His novels are male amusements, and very amusing they certainly are. Fielding's conversation was coarse, and so tinctured with the rank weeds of the garden, [Covent-garden,] that it would now be thought only fit for a brothel.-BUR NEY. test of publick opinion with sucn success as to have established its great merit, both for the story, the sentiments, and the manners, and also the varieties of diction, so as to leave no doubt of its having an animated truth of execution throughout. A book of travels, lately published under the title of Coriat Junior, and written by Mr. Paterson 3, was mentioned. Johnson said this book was in imitation of Sterne 4, and not of Coriat, whose name Paterson had chosen as a whimsical one. "Tom Coriat (said he) was a humourist about the court of James the First. He had a mixture of learning, of wit, and of buffoonery, He first travelled through Europe, and published his travels5. He afterwards travelled on foot through Asia, and had made many remarks; but he died at Mandoa, and his remarks were lost." We talked of gaming, and animadverted on it with severity. JOHNSON. "Nay, gentlemen, let us not aggravate the matter. It is not roguery to play with a man who is ignorant of the game, while you are master of it, and so win his money; for he thinks he can play better than you, as you think you can play better than he; and the superior skill carries it." ERSKINE. "He is a fool, but you are not a rogue. JOHNSON. "That's much about the truth, sir. It must be considered, that a man who only does what every one of the society to which he belongs would do, is not a dishonest man. In the republic of Sparta it was agreed, that stealing was not dishonourable, if not discovered. I do not commend a society where there is an agreement that what would not otherwise be fair, shall be fair; but I maintain, that an individual of any society, who practises what is allowed, is BOSWELL. "So not a dishonest man.” then, sir, you do not think ill of a man who wins perhaps forty thousand pounds in a winter?" JOHNSON. "Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man. 3 Mr. Samuel Paterson, eminent for his knowledge of books.-BOSWELL. [He was the son of a woollen-draper; he kept a bookseller's shop, chiefly for old books, and was afterwards an auctioneer; but seems to have been unsuccessful in all his attempts at business. He made catalogues of several celebrated libraries. He died in 1802, ætat. 77.-ED.] 4 Mr. Paterson, in a pamphlet, produced some evidence to show that his work was written before Sterne's "Sentimental Journey" appeared. -BOSWELL. [Under the title of " Crudities, hastily gobbled up in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, &c." Coriat was born in 1577, educated at Westminster school and Oxford. He died in 1617, at Surat, says the Biog. Dict., after he had left Mandoa.-ED.] Gaming is a mode of transferring property | don. "Sir (said Johnson,) in a country so do for himself, there is not so much occasion for that attachment. No man is thought the worse of here, whose brother was hanged 4. In uncommercial countries, many of the branches of a family must de Mr. Erskine told us, that when he was in the island of Minorca, he not only read prayers, but preached two sermons to the regiment. He seemed to object to the pas-pend on the stock; so, in order to make the sage in scripture, where we are told that the angel of the Lord smote in one night forty thousand Assyrians 2 "Sir (said Johnson), you should recollect that there was a supernatural interposition; they were destroyed by pestilence. You are not to suppose that the angel of the Lord went about and stabbed each of them with a dagger, or knocked them on the head man by man." After Mr. Erskine was gone, a discussion took place, whether the present Earl of Buchan, when Lord Cardross, did right to refuse to go secretary of the embassy to Spain, when Sir James Gray, a man of inferiour rank, went ambassadour. Dr. Johnson said, that perhaps in point of interest he did wrong; but in point of dignity he did well. Sir Alexander insisted that he was wrong; and said that Mr. Pitt intended it as an advantageous thing for him. "Why, sir, (said Johnson,) Mr. Pitt might think it an advantageous thing for him to make him a vintner, and get him all the Portugal trade; but he would have demeaned himself strangely, had he accepted of such a situation. Sir, had he gone secretary while his inferiour was ambassadour, he would have been a traitor to his rank and family 3⁄4 ̧” I talked of the little attachment which subsisted between near relations in Lon [Lord Erskine was fond of this anecdote. He told it to the editor the first time that he had the honour of being in his company, and often repeated it with an observation, that he had been a sailor and a soldier, was a lawyer and a parson The latter he affected to think the greatest of his efforts, and to support that opinion would quote the prayer for the clergy in the liturgy, from the expression of which he would (in no commendable spirit of jocularity) infer that the enlightening them was one of the "greatest marvels" which could be worked.-ED.] 2 One hundred and eighty-five thousand. See Isaiah, xxxvii. 36, and 2 Kings, xix. 35.—Ma LONE. 3 [If this principle were to be admitted, the young nobility would be excluded from all the professions; for the superiors in the profession would frequently be their inferiors in personal rank. Would Johnson have dissuaded Lord Cardross from entering on the military profession, because at his outset he must have been commanded by a person inferior in personal rank? This, if ever it was a subject of real doubt, is now better understood, and young men of the highest rank think it no degradation to enter into the junior ranks of the military, naval, and diplomatic and official professions.-ED.] head of the family take care of them, they are represented as connected with his reputation, that, self-love being interested, he may exert himself to promote their interest. You have first large circles, or clans; as commerce increases, the connexion is confined to families; by degrees, that too goes off, as having become unnecessary, and there being few opportunities of intercourse. One brother is a merchant in the city, and another is an officer in the guards; how little intercourse can these two have!" I argued warmly for the old feudal system. Sir Alexander opposed it, and talked of the pleasure of seeing all men free and independent. JOHNSON. "I agree with Mr. Boswell, that there must be a high satisfaction in being a feudal lord; but we are to consider that we ought not to wish to have a number of men unhappy for the satisfaction of one." I maintained that numbers, namely, the vassals or followers, were not unhappy; for that there was a reciprocal satisfaction between the lord and them; he being kind in his authority over them; they being respectful and faithful to him. On Thursday, April 9, I called on him to beg he would go and dine with me at the Mitre Tavern. He had resolved not to dine at all this day, I know not for what reason; and I was so unwilling to be deprived of his company, that I was content to submit to suffer a want, which was at first somewhat painful, but he soon made me himself, when he finds his intellectual incliforget it; and a man is always pleased with nations predominate. He observed, that to reason philosophically on the nature of prayer was very unprofitable. Talking of ghosts, he said, he knew one friend, who was an honest man and a sensible man, who told him he had seen a ghost 4 [Johnson would hardly have volunteered this illustration if there had been any grounds for the story told by Miss Seward and Dr. M'Nicol.-See ante, p. 11. n.; and, since that note was printed, Dr. Harwood has furnished additional grounds for disbelieving the story. Miss Seward says, that that the person hanged was "his uncle Andrew," and Dr. M'Nicol says he was a native of Scotland." Now, in the parish register of Cubley, where Michael Johnson was born, we find the entries of the births of several persons of his family, between 1650 and 1700, and especially of" Andrew Johnson," the Doctor's uncle.-ED.] ト -old Mr. Edward Cave, the printer at St. to defend his honour." GOLDSMITH (turnJohn's Gate. He said, Mr. Cave did not ing to me). "I ask you first, sir, what like to talk of it, and seemed to be in great would you do if you were affronted?” I horrour whenever it was mentioned. Bos- answered, I should think it necessary to WELL. "Pray, sir, what did he say was fight. "Why then," replied Goldsmith, the appearance? JOHNSON. Why, sir," that solves the question." JOHNSON. something of a shadowy being." I mentioned witches, and asked him what they properly meant. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, they properly mean those who make use of the aid of evil spirits." BoSWELL. "There is, no doubt, sir, a general report and belief of their having existed." JOHNSON. "You have not only the general report and belief, but you have many voluntary solemn confessions." He did not affirm any thing positively upon a subject which it is the fashion of the times to laugh at as a matter of absurd credulity. He only seemed willing, as a candid inquirer after truth, however strange and inexplicable, to show that he understood what might be urged for it. On Friday, April 10, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith. Armorial bearings having been mentioned, Johnson said they were as ancient as the siege of Thebes, which he proved by a passage in one of the tragedies of Euripi des 2. I started the question, whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The brave old general fired at this, and said, with a lofty air," Undoubtedly a man has a right 1 See this curious question treated by him with most acute ability, post, 16th Aug. 1773.-Bos WELL. The passage to which Johnson alluded, is to be found (as I conjecture) in the PHENISSE, 1. 1120. Και πρώτα μεν προσήγε, κ. τ. λ. Ο της κυνηγου Παρθενοπαιος εκγονος, ΕΠΙΣΗΜ, έχων ΟΙΚΕΙΟΝ εν μέσω σακεί J. BOSWELL. [The meaning is that "Parthenopaus had, in the centre of his shield, the domestic sign-Atalanta killing the Etolian boar; " but this, admitting that the story of Atalanta was the "armorial bearing" of Parthenopeus, would only prove them to be as ancient as Euripides, who flourished (442 A. C.) near 800 years after the siege of Thebes (1225 A. C.) Homer, whom the chronologists place 500 years before Euripides, describes a sculptured shield; and there can be little doubt that very soon after ingenuity had made a shield, taste would begin to decorate it. The words "domestic sign are certainly very curious, yet probably mean no more than that he bore on his shield the representation of a family story. The better opinion seems to be that it was not till the visor concealed the face of the warrior, that the ornaments of the shields and crests became distinctive of individuals and families in that peculiar manner which we understand by the terms "armorial bearings."-ED.] "No, sir, it does not solve the question." It does not follow, that what a man would do is therefore right." I said, I wished to have it settled, whether duelling was contrary to the laws of christianity. Johnson immediately entered on the subject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and so far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these: "Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of offence arise; which are considered to be of such importance, that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not so. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour, he lies, his neighbour tells him, he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives him a blow: but in a state of highly polished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must, therefore, be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, does not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence; to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of society. I could wish there was not that superfluity vail, no doubt, a man may lawfully fight a of refinement; but while such notions pre دو duel 3." Let it be remembered, that this justification is applicable only to the person who receives an affront. All mankind must condemn the aggressor. The general told us, that when he was a very young man, I think only fifteen, serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg. The prince took up a glass of wine, and, by a fillip, made some of it fly in. Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilemma. To have challenged him instantly might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier: to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his highness had done in jest, said, "Mon prince-" I forget the 3 The frequent disquisitions on this subject bring painfully to recollection the death of Mr. Boswell's eldest son, Sir Alexander, who was killed in a duel in 1822.-ED.] French words he used; the purport however was, "That's a good joke: but we do it much better in England;" and threw a whole glass of wine in the prince's face. An old general, who sat by, said, " Il a bien fait, mon prince, vous l'avez commencé:" and thus all ended in good-humour, Dr. Johnson said, "Pray, general, give us an account of the siege of Belgrade." Upon which the general, pouring a little wine upon the table, described every thing with a wet finger. "Here we were, here were the Turks,” &c. &c. Johnson listened with the closest attention. A question was started, how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle-the same likings and the same aversions. JOHNSON. Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke: I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party 1." GOLDSMITH. "But, sir, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard. You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." JOHNSON (with a loud voice). "Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point; I am only saying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid 2." 1 of which Mr. Burke was a leading member. -ED.] 2 Mr. Boswell's note here being rather short, as taken at the time (with a view perhaps to future revision,) Johnson's remark is obscure, and requires to be a little opened. What he said probably was, "You seem to think that two friends, to live well together, must be in a perfect harmony with each other; that each should be to the other, what Sappho boasts she was to her lover, and uniformly agree in every particular; but this is by no means necessary," "&c. The words of Sappho alluded to, are 66 omnique à parte placebam."-Ovid. Epist. Sapp. ad Phaonem. I. 51.-MALONE. I should rather conjecture that the passage which Johnson had in view was the following, 1. 45: "Si, nisi quæ facie poterit te digna videri Nulla futura tua est; nulla futura tua est." His reasoning and its illustration I take to be this. If you are determined to associate with no one whose sentiments do not universally coincide with your own, you will by such a resolution exclude yourself from all society, for no two men can be Goldsmith told us, that he was now busy in writing a Natural History3; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings, at a farmer's house, near to the six mile-stone, on the Edgware-road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said, he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children: he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle 4, the translator of "The Lusiad," and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the wall with a black lead pencil. The subject of ghosts being introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his 5, an honest man, and a man of sense, having asserted to him, that he had seen an apparition. Goldsmith told us, he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen one. General Oglethorpe told us, that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends, that he should die on a particular day; that upon that day a battle took place with the French; that af ter it was over, and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him, where was his prophecy now. Prendergast gravely answered, "I shall die, notwithstanding what you see." Soon afterwards, there came a shot from a French battery, to which the orders for a cessation of arms had found who, on all points, invariably think alike. So Sappho in Ovid tells Phaon, that if he will not unite himself to any one who is not a complete resemblance of himself, it will be impossible for him to form any union at all. The lines which I have quoted are thus expanded in Pope's Paraphrase, which, to say the truth, I suspect was at this moment more in Johnson's recollection than the original: "If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign 3 [Published soon after, under the title of a History of the Earth and of Animated Nature. -ED.] |